Business Case Study
Cloud Optimization
Cloud computing has changed the way companies do business. But before you jump in with both feet, you need to learn what risks are involved and how to minimize them.
Business Case Study
Cloud Optimization
Cloud computing has changed the way companies do business. But before you jump in with both feet, you need to learn what risks are involved and how to minimize them.
The Context
Our client is over 1000 users in the restoration industry. We provide them with managed cybersecurity and work extensively with them to provide IT consulting and IT project delivery. Over the last few years we have partnered with them to move 90% of their server infrastructure to Azure. This aids in business continuity planning with fully redundant disaster recovery of their Azure environment.
The Challenge
As workloads are shifted into the cloud, initial scope seldom matches longer term use. This is a strength of cloud technology in that it can be optimized to fit current and future use. The challenge is to keep costs in line and optimize cloud technology investment to match needs in an ongoing basis. This requires specialized knowledge, tools, and action.
We saw an opportunity to optimize workloads and the cloud technology investments from our client, as well as manage the implementation of any recommended changes.
The Plan of Attack
At EC we work extensively to ensure best in class partnerships and toolsets that allow our engineers the ability to quickly assess cloud server workloads and make recommendations. This is important given the built in Azure optimization suggestions limit the options to the current series of cloud server.
When assessing the servers for our client, we worked closely with their operational team to determine the uses and needs of each machine so that we could correctly identify the proper cloud server series. For example, the burstable series offer incredible value for situations that are a fit, but they will grind an operation almost to a standstill if put in place inappropriately.
In addition, Azure Cloud Server series are changing and advancing all the time. What is available to us today is different than 6 months ago. Leveraging the quick enhancements in cloud technology helps us to get the best our of our clients’ investment.
The Delivered Outcome
For our client, we:
- Updated a number of cloud servers to a burstable series saving up to 65% of the VM cost
- Recommended increasing the spend on a few key servers by upgrading them to newer versions of the cloud servers available.
- Analyzed and suggested those devices with consistent usage over time should take advantage of reserved instances. These reserved spends for a 3 year period decreased the cost on these devices by over 35%.
- Delivered IT consulting via ongoing quarterly review of their full cloud environment with suggestions on further enhancements.
The end result was a better allocated budget, more properly aligned workloads, and thousands of dollars in monthly savings.
The Takeaway
Cloud server technology is advancing every day. Many clients have cloud implementations that are not optimized for their current usage, either limiting overall performance for the spend, or with too great power which can eat unnecessarily through budget.
If you think you may need Cloud Optimization, or even just want to confirm that your current cloud technology aligns with your business needs, get in touch with us today!
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